Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto & Co. and I don't own the quote "A ninja must see underneath the underneath."
By the way, thanks for your reviews, everybody!
Chapter 28: Break the Ice
"Another way to supervise Pein is through spies like you. I want you to find out what he's up to."
"Are you suspecting him of something?"
"Maybe. Leaving aside his little problem with being a 'good boy' at night, Pein is a very sly ninja. I've given him the power to control some of the most dangerous criminals on earth as long as he respects my rules. However, these rules might be a bit restraining and he's been acting quite strangely lately. As much as I would like to think that he's not planning to get rid of me and take my place, a ninja must see underneath the underneath."
"So what should I do?"
"Oh, there are lots of things a kunoichi like you can do to... persuade a shinobi to tell them everything, especially a shinobi like Pein, whose weakness for beauty is well known."
"You've got to be kidding me!!" she snapped.
"I thought you wanted to help your friends. You know what Pein really wants, don't you?"
"Besides being the most powerful shinobi ever?"
"Actually, it's not a "what" he wants, it's a "who" he wants. He hurt Gaara because he couldn't get to Sasuke, and when he got to him, he hurt Sasuke because he couldn't get to his older brother. Sooner or later he will find a way to have Itachi as well. I should get rid of Pein right now, but I would lose my cover and he is a good leader too. However, if you can bring me proof of his betrayal..."
"FINE. I got the point."
"Good girl."
"Stop calling me like that. You make me sick."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I've never been to Yukigakure before. What kind of shinobis are there?" Sasuke asked when he finally managed to catch up with his brother.
"Cold and deadly." was all he got back in reply.
"You could try to be a bit more specific about that."
Itachi glared at him, and then looked ahead, his watchful sharingan ready to detect any enemy. They were in the Land of Waterfalls (near the border with the Land of Snow) a land mostly hostile towards strangers.
"They don't use close combat usually." he said in a low voice. "Some of them use senbon and their techniques are very accurate. They are a small nation and few of them actually become ninja, but those who do are far stronger than the average ninja in Konoha or Suna. Even the genin in their village are able to kill a chunin from another village. You're going to need your sharingan, so keep it active. They have scouts in the entire land and you could get caught in a senbon storm."
"Wow. I've never heard you talk that much since... almost forever." he sighed, activating his sharingan. "How come they're so strong and their genin never take part in the chunin exams? I mean... I've never seen a snow-nin before."
"They have their own exams every year and they never get involved in matters that don't concern them. That's why they don't like to be bothered."
"So what documents are we supposed to take from them?"
"Secret documents." Itachi replied in the same tone.
Sasuke suddenly remembered about the second part of the Chunin Exam and his first encounter with Orochimaru. He still couldn't understand how Kay had accepted that guy as her sensei for three years. Well, that must have been the reason for her being so crazy and not-very-much-like-a-normal-Akatsuki, but the question was if any of the Akatsuki members was not slightly mentally disturbed.
Pein had a serious problem with being a pervert and a rapist, Konan was arrogant and bossy (Shikamaru would have certainly fallen in love with her...), Itachi was the biggest sadist he had ever known, Kay was definitely not a normal girl, Deidara had a blow-up-everything problem, Zetsu was a weird looking cannibal (ewww...), Tobi was some sort of a 3-year old minded assassin, Sasori would have turned his own girlfriend (if he had had one) into a puppet and ... so on.
"Was Kay in trouble with Pein because of me?"
Itachi gave him a strange look and shook his head.
"She can act a lot better than you. Her initial plan was to play dead, but luckily, she dropped it five minutes before coming to replace you. She only made Pein think you were too drunk for him to play with you."
"Oh, I can imagine her doing that. What a nightmare. Really, what's wrong with this girl?"
"She must have hit her head when she was young." his brother shrugged his shoulders, using a slightly amused tone to which Sasuke responded with a low chuckle.
"That was so mean of you. I thought you were in love with her."
"What did I tell you about that physical attraction two days ago?"
"So you did it." he sneered.
Itachi glared at him and refused to react otherwise, but sped up the pace instead, as a punishment for the very tired and big-mouthed curious Sasuke. The younger Uchiha just sighed in annoyance and said nothing else about the only matter that seemed to bother his brother so much. Just when he wanted to ask another question, he saw something with his sharingan and looked at Itachi to see if he had noticed as well.
"I guess this is our 'welcome to Yukigakure'." he whispered, so faintly that no one else except Sasuke could hear him. "Remember what I told you earlier."
One snowflake danced in the air in front of his eyes, followed by a cold breeze and three senbons, which he easily stopped with his kunai. He wondered if the ninja who had thrown those senbons was just playing with them. The wrost part was that he couldn't spot the shinobi with his sharingan.
"Can you see him?" Sasuke asked, in the same low whisper.
"The shinobi is not here, he's pulling the strings from somewhere else. These places are full of traps controled from afar."
"Yeah. They sure hate close combat. Does that mean that it's their weakness?"
"Not necessarily." he replied, taking the kunai hidden in his sleeve. "Watch out."
Another bunch of senbons pointed at them where released from a trap, but they were both ready for them. After that attack, Sasuke felt weird for a moment, as if some weight had been lifted from everywhere around them and he heard Itachi whisper again.
"I think you annoyed them with your comment."
"If you were to chose, which would it be? The traps or the snow-nin behind them?"
"Neither." Itachi replied in a simple voice, as they both stopped and jumped off the branches to land on snow-covered ground and meet the emptiness of their enemy's blue eyes. Sasuke's first thought was that the ninja was thinner than Gaara when he was twelve and he couldn't even imagine that guy fight for the simple fact that he couldn't understand where his muscles were, if he had any. "By the way..." Itachi's voice suddenly echoed in his head, reminding him of the form of telepathy the Akatsuki members used sometimes. "I lied about those documents."
"What the fuck do you mean by that? What are we really after?" Sasuke glared at him.
"The five-tailed beast."
"When were you going to tell me?!"
"If it hadn't been for this inconvenience, probably much later."
"Wow, thanks a lot."
"I'll take care of him." he muttered, angry about the fact that he hadn't been told anything about the five-tailed beast being their real objective. Besides, the snow-nin didn't look dangerous, except for that cold indifference glowing in his deep blue eyes.
"Reckless fool. Remember what I told you." Itachi scolded him.
"Yeah yeah..."
He quickly used his fire based jutsu and attacked the strange ninja, but he was fast as well, using a substitution jutsu just before the balls of fire could hurt him. The clone broke in shards of ice and Sasuke immediately turned around, looking for the enemy. Itachi was also watchful, although he had initially considered the snow-nin an inconvenience. If he stood hidden like that, he represented a threat.
"Fuck! I lost him!" Sasuke thought.
"Don't worry about that, he'll come back."
The boy felt a strange cold breeze from behind and spun right in time to block some senbon, catching a glimpse of their strange enemy as well. Itachi also blocked an attack and his youger brother realized that he had never seen his brother so not uninterested in the enemy. He wanted to ask him whether the tailed-beast had a host, but he didn't have time to do it because senbons gushed out of the trees towards him when he moved and he barely had time to avoid them.
"Fuck!" he spat. "That wasn't him, it was a trap! I thought he had given up those things! If he is fighting us, then who..."
"You idiot. Now the entire forest knows we're here."
Sasuke jumped back on the branches above, trying to figure out who was now behind the traps. He saw Itachi fighting against the white-haired ninja, who proved to be rather equal in speed and chakra control. His first thought was to go help his brother, but he rolled his eyes and murmured:
"Yeah, right, like he'd ever need help from someone like me."
He felt watched and he didn't like the feeling at all. At the same time, a thousand sad things ran through his mind at the same time, making him slightly distracted. It was the cold breeze again that woke him up from his daydream. The two ninja were still fighting in the snow and neither seemed tired at all, which made him shiver at the thought of seeing Itachi defeated by some stupid snow-nin. Incredibly though, the image appeared clearly in his mind: his brother's bloody corpse lying in the crimson snow as some wolves approached cautiously, lured by the smell of blood. For an unknown reason, Itachi's body was replaced by Gaara's and Sasuke kept staring, unable to believe what he was seeing. It actually seemed real: he could smell the blood and the unforgiving cold, he could hear the whines of the hungry wolves and the snow crunching under their paws as they slowly made their way towards the dead body.
He noticed he was holding a kunai in his right hand and he watched his hand raising, poiting the deadly weapon towards his neck, again, for a reason he did not know, but somehow accepted. For the first time after a long, very long time, his mind was empty. Sasuke didn't want anything anymore. He knew he would feel a complete relief when the kunai would slice his throat open and he was eager for it. Then a familiar voice yelled something that sounded like "You fool!", the kunai in his hand was removed by another and the two weapons stopped in the dark-colored branch of a tree. Sasuke looked down, from where Itachi was glaring at him. "Behind you!" another shout came from his brother, this time able to wake him up completely.
His reaction was almost immediate, as if he had known all the time someone or something was behind him. The moment his gaze intersected with those purple eyes, familiar feelings tried to take control over him again, but this time, they stopped without Itachi's intervention and Sasuke had an extra second to look at his enemy. The sharingan noticed the emptiness in her eyes and the darkness of her expression. When the extra second was gone, she held out a hand and simply pushed him off the branch with one finger.